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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

Ah, that's much better, my dear.See, you can expand your vocabulary when you want to .

_________________________
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

I do. It is the way to get the kind of body I want.I usually have the care to keep my wrist free, Not stiff and tense, But firm enough to have enough strength to pull them up and down.

I can end up with blisters on my hands but they usually go away after a few days if I apply moisterizer.

I find it helps my back muscles get stronger, which stops me from slouching forwards. I get much less fatigue after practising several long hours. I am really hyperactive hence it allows me to use up some energy.Also, it puts me in a great mood and much less likely to get annoyed.

There was a time I was quite involved with the weight training. Unfortunately, that time also coincided with me refinishing a piano and also playing the piano. The net result was a great case of tennis elbow. Something had to give and I guess it has been the weight training. That said, it rarely takes me more than a couple of weeks to get back the stamina to play exhausting works like the A flat polonaise or Ginastera Sonata that I never seem to tire of. I am always physically active and do a lot of work on my cars, boats and bikes.

Weightlifting is awesome, but one has to be extremely careful of the wrists, back and elbows because even tiny strains can cause a lifetime of pain for people who type at a computer or play the piano. Most weightlifters don't type or play the piano so they have no worries about pushing the weight limits.

Typing 8 hours a day or playing the piano 4 or 5 hours day is very demanding over 20 or 30 years. So it is one of the times in life where you have to use your head and not your muscles!

My 2 cents: Be careful of the small joints/wrists when lifting. I had carpal tunnel last year and trigger thumb surgery this week. Some say it's my starting the piano late in life, I say it's all the weight lifting I've done during my life. I miss the lifting but I now power walk 1,500 miles a year and feel great. Some people have bodies for lifting, I guess I don't.Life goes on......frank

Learning to play the piano has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with age. I have weight trained over the years since I was 21. I started to play the piano at 62. I learned to type when I was 13 and typed for a living since I was 21. So as I say, just use your head and not your muscles. When you get the burn, you get the gain, but that is the point when you don't take a 2 minute rest and then type for 8 hours non-stop. You can do it all, but you have to do it right.

Lots of people have hand problems/finger problems and they don't lift weights. The key believe it or not is to relax when playing the piano, typing. Carpal tunnel and tennis elbow are tricky, but learning to relax and go slowly can go a long, long, ways. Being tense is a killer. A no no.

Interestingly, I can only recall hearing of one "great" pianist who was also into a major physique thing (Moritz Rosenthal).

If any of the currently active international touring pianists do weight training, I don't recall hearing about it. It would be interesting to know, if they do. Or, actually, any kind of physical regime they use.

Lots of people have hand problems/finger problems and they don't lift weights. The key believe it or not is to relax when playing the piano, typing. Carpal tunnel and tennis elbow are tricky, but learning to relax and go slowly can go a long, long, ways. Being tense is a killer. A no no.

Yep, learning to play with the least amount of effort is not intuitive and can very easily be taught.

It takes 20 years to learn to play the piano well. so if you are 4, you will be 20. If you start at 60 I will be 80 or dead.

Kids have lots of free time and their parents pay for their lessons.

A person at 40 usually don't want to spend the rest of their life sitting on a piano bench 3 or 4 hours a day, but it can be done. Most people who try to learn to play the piano don't want to take 30 years to practice 3 or 4 hours a day because they are almost 50 and lots of people die in their 50s, 60s, 70s.

You tell me how it is age is a factor in learning to play the piano. Of course, a bad hand, a bad arm, a bad brain, is a problem, that would so be true for a kid who had a skateboard accident and destroyed his body.

I should tell you that playing the piano is a brain activity. The brain has to train the fingers. The fingers can move quickly at any age but, it is the brain that has to train and control the fingers.

When a kid has no money, few options, and is directed to the piano each day, he will play/practice. A person at 30 has options like to go to a bar with friends, watching tv, you name it, there are a trillion things that are more fun to do than sitting on a piano bench for some people - especially if they work 8 hours a day at a desk job and then sit at the piano 3 hours each evening.

Learning to play the piano has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with age.

It has a TON to do with learning to play the piano!

One might say that, unfortunately for many, age is of the utmost critical importance for anyone hoping to become a master pianist. There are some very important reasons for this that have to do with our reality as biological organisms and the windows of opportunity that open and close during our development as children and maturation into adults. One aspect is the kind of super-conducting insulation (myelination) of our neuronal pathways that takes place through adolescence. Another is the wholesale pruning of entire networks of pathways that appear not to be used during our teenage years. Our brains are physically being altered and built into potential-master-pianist-brains when we are children. If you miss this one-off, limited-time-only opportunity, you will never be able to grow a pianist brain later in life.

I am not aware of any master pianist who did not start their lessons already from a very young age, often 4 or younger, and continuing through childhood. Arcadi "OMG what a technique" Volodos is perhaps one notable exception, as he didn't start playing piano until the ripe old age of 8 and didn't devote himself to the instrument and really get professional training until he was 15.

I have a friend who took up piano when he retired at 60, bought himself a Steinway upright and hired a good teacher. Despite his great enthusiasm and daily practice, he never got beyond Grade 1 ABRSM standard and still has problems with co-cordination between his hands some 5 years after starting.

But he loves playing (very) simplified versions of the classics. He has long abandoned his initial idea of doing the grade exams.

_________________________
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

I do work out with weights, I usually lift under my max, and do more reps, or other ways to compensate. I am a bit worried about straining wrists, but haven't seen any need to not work out with weights.

It's often noticeable that teenage pianists who haven't yet fully developed their strength don't have the kind of control between pp and ppp that they later show, (as well as between ff and fff).

Even if this statemenet is true(which is not at all clear especially since we don't kinow if you;re thinking of average amateur pianists or far better ones), I think any lack of dynamic control is because their technique isn't as developed as it becomes later and has absolutely nothing to do with their strength.

There is certainly a good part of technique which resides completely in the brain, but it would seem to me that what we mean by (dynamic) control and raw technique (speed, coordination, independence, microtiming, hand voicing) is often equal to or completely dependent on a physical motor matter. One of the most principal elements of our motoric movements are of course our muscles. Hence, better muscle development, of which strength is an integral aspect, would seem to be of critical importance.

Our bodies undergo some unbelievable transformations, akward periods, growth spurts and continued development into our twenties. It would seem clear to me that any child's technique will depend on what their body can or cannot do in relation to the phase of development in which they find themselves.

I have a friend who took up piano when he retired at 60, bought himself a Steinway upright and hired a good teacher. Despite his great enthusiasm and daily practice, he never got beyond Grade 1 ABRSM standard and still has problems with co-cordination between his hands some 5 years after starting.

But he loves playing (very) simplified versions of the classics. He has long abandoned his initial idea of doing the grade exams.

I know people who in their 40's started with piano or another instrument from scratch and made it all the way through Grade 8 ABRSM. I do believe that there is a huge difference between starting after 55 or before 55 in terms of learning possibilities. Interestingly, those who start very late on the piano and proceed to go far with it are often those that a) had childhood musical training (e.g. public school music classes, singing in a choir, learning to read musical notation) and then b) spent 30 years typing rapidly on a keyboard and finally c) have extreme motivation and spend 2 to 3 hours per day practicing.

Pogorelich.
4000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/28/08
Posts: 4565
Loc: not somewhere over the rainbow

I don't think lifting weights is good for playing, particularly for sound. To produce a good sound (not to mention not to hurt your hand) your forearm shouldn't be flexed, and I've noticed even when I started doing push ups as part of my work out - it directly affected my playing. I noticed I wasn't able to play with a free arm.

Hi, all and good comments! I'm the one who at 62 started playing the piano after 2 1/2 years trying to play the tenor sax, zero music before that. I'm just finishing my 2nd year on the piano and will keep playing until I leave this planet.I've weight lifted off and on for 20 years and had some injuries to my back so I backed off lifting. Now that I'm immersed in the piano I sure don't want anything ot happen to my body because of lifting. I now power walk 1,500 miles a year, about 5 miles per day. Much easier on my body and I get good marks from my doctor too.Thanks for the comments on being tense. Of all the things I need to keep in my mind when I practice the most important is being relaxed.Thanksfrank